Hank Chinaski

Agreed…OF is probably the deepest position in the system, and we’re lacking any real IF solutions. Tucker is really good, but if he doesn’t want to sign an extension, you have a chance to cash him in for a couple of very good prospects and a few lottery tickets. He’s a 4-5 win player; Chas is a 3.5 win player, if you actually let him play every day. He probably gives you 75-80% of Tucker’s production. Then you have Meyers, Yordan, and by 2024 possibly Gilbert (and whoever may be targeted in FA). I’d try to extend Bregman again (I know he hasn’t been great this year but I think he’ll be fine because his underlying stats seem mostly fine, and his current deal ends after his age-30 season), as well as Altuve for a few more seasons (he needs to be retained, a la Biggio). I think Bregman will be a 3-5 WAR guy for several more years (he’ll always have a pretty high floor due him to his BB/K ratio. Altuve will be chasing 3,000, and he will steadily decline, but you keep him anyway. If you extend those guys the IF is mostly set for the next few seasons.

Correct, they aren’t there. There are no Tucker, Bregman, Correa level prospects in the system right now…those guys were top-5 picks. Gilbert and a few others are promising, but the days of stacking high-end draft picks in the system ended 8 years ago. That’s the price of success. (Of course, losing your top two picks in consecutive seasons handicaps you that much more.) I'm not optimistic about this season. The injuries have been too much and exposed a bit of a lack of depth. I just don’t (and haven’t, since the Urquidy and Garcia injuries) see a team that can flip a switch and turn it all around; I see a mediocre lineup (could turn it around to a degree when Yordan comes back, but it’s not going to be dominant) and a pretty-good pitching staff that has been over-performing and is probably due for some downward regression. That said, there is a path to resetting the roster on the fly (as opposed to a true, radical “rebuild”), but they have to be smart about it. @Wulaw Horn covers this really well on his podcast that he linked above ^^.

I took it my first semester - my fine arts credit. I wouldn’t say the final was difficult, but you would have had to go to class (well maybe not to pass, but to get an A). First half of the course was all about the antecedents of what became “rock,” going all the way back to slave songs and such. It was more a history of American music (and some culture) in general than what you’d think of as “rock”. Was a good class.

Chas sent down? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. He has a 120 wRC+. He’s been one of the better performers on the team. He’s been an above average offensive player every year he’s been in MLB and he’s good defensively. Sent down? He should be starting in CF every damn day. He may be the most underappreciated Astro I can recall. Grae stays? He’s not a major league player. He wasn’t good offensively in the minors. He adds nothing to the roster. Dubon is the utility guy. That is the flexibility.

I admire your optimism, but take a quick gander at that 2019 roster. This team is not in the same galaxy as that one. The offense will probably get a little better, the pitching will probably get a little worse. Add it all together and you’re still nothing more than a mediocre team. It’s what they’ve been all season and there’s no real reason to believe that they’re anything more than that.

lulz.

Lol “very doable.”

Meh. People are frustrated because of all the unforced errors that have contributed to this shitty season. It didn’t and doesn’t have to be this way. But Crane fucked up the off-season and Dusty creatively fucks up the actual season in new and imaginative ways pretty much every day by stubbornly refusing to play his best players. If Crane had taken the GM thing seriously in the winter and if Dusty actually tries to assemble the lineup in ways conducive to, you know, winning games, and it still isn’t good enough, that’s ok, no team is going to be dominant forever. But this feels (and has felt, for months) like self-sabotage via simple incompetency.

Sure, when your best bat is on the IL, why not sit the next best bat too? Makes total sense. After all, we’re the Astros and are entitled to make the playoffs, so no need to attempt to win regular season games.

That’s the thing - there isn’t an answer.

There’s a reasonable chance that the Angels are actually better than us too.

That oughta right the ship.

Of all the dumb shit in their posts, making definitive statements about who will win or lose games the season after next, in the age of NIL/transfer portal, is maybe the dumbest.

So a Yordan has/will have missed: 11% of the season in 2021 17% of the season in 2022 At least 30% if the season in 2023 Phenomenal hitter, but he’s big and stiff. Beginning to appear that he’s a perennial injury candidate, which likely gets worse with age.

Well Greg, have you ever considered that they’re not “playing?” Their inferiority complex is 100% genuine.

I mean, he hasn’t been a trainwreck I guess, but his .685 OPS is bad and his expected stats indicate he’s been a little lucky to even be that “good.”

3 of the 18 qualified hitters with the worst expected wOBA in MLB are getting regular ABs in the Astros lineup. In other words, on most nights, 1/3 of our lineup is made up of 7th percentile hitters or worse.

It doesn’t appear so, and that’s an enormous problem. If he only answers to Crane, and Crane is good with it… Put it this way - would Jeff Lunhow be cool with this?

I love the “Texas players wouldn’t even swing!” point they keep repeating. Is that supposed to be some indictment on the Texas hitters, as though swinging at strikes and not swinging at balls isn’t the fundamental basis for sound hitting? Good golly they really can’t handle it when Texas wins anything.

Lol, we’re Texas.

Oh ok. I don’t think they’re out of the playoff hunt (the above comment was mostly a joke, intended to highlight how incredibly crappy the lineup is today), particularly since the playoffs have been expanded. And their record isn’t the concerning part. If they had this record, but didn’t have massive lineup holes at 1B, C, and an OF spot, their best player on the shelf, a manager who allocates playing time irrationally, a rotation with 2 replacement-ish players and a rookie, and a farm system devoid of difference makers…I’d be more optimistic about their playoff odds. And yeah, I’m aware that a handful of teams with mediocre records deep into the season have ended up making deep playoff runs and occasionally winning the WS. There are many, many more who end up doing jack shit. It’s not the record; it’s the roster. Of course it’s possible; but from where I sit, all I see is a franchise that had an off-season of really bad decisions, a rash of injuries, a lack of depth, and no urgency. Could they turn it all around? Sure. But why would anyone expect that? Because they’re the Astros?

Why?